Cage

Damaged-goods rapper Cage famously claimed Eminem ripped off his style, has his own 8 Mile in the dream pipeline (with longtime fan Shia LaBeouf hoping to play him), and a new album that you could call his anti-Relapse--with Cage's entertainingly frank autobiography contrasting with Eminem's increasingly desperate agit-poop. But the more telling point of comparison is punk-rap from the Beasties to P.O.S., which Cage one-ups on Depart from Me by finding a new balance: "Fat Kids Need an Anthem" sounds less like hip hop than like Mike Muir sputtering through Suicidal Tendencies' "Institutionalized" over a Big Black beat ("I went from fantasizing about women to fantasizing about food I can't eat anymore"), while "Kick Rocks" could make Le Tigre fans dance. At this point, a harrowing Hollywood biopic would be an anticlimax. With Yak Ballz. 18+.
Wed., July 8, 8 p.m., 2009